Click here to subscribe to M.A.D.

Seventeenth Annual Bedford Antiques Show Draws Large Crowds

by Richard de Thuin

Parking was a nightmare along Route 22 and Clinton Road on the evening of Friday, April 5, in Bedford, New York. The champagne preview party for the Bedford Spring Antiques Show held at the Rippowam-Cisqua School was in motion, and every conceivable space in the parking lot outside the school was filled with automobiles and SUVs. An overflow of vehicles lined Route 22 all the way up to and inside the parking lot of the nearby St. Matthew's Church.

Inside the school, people socialized with old friends and made new acquaintances while they enjoyed food catered by Lacourciere Catering. According to several dealers, there was not much buying among the guests, although Schueler Antiques, Camden, Maine, sold a Pennsylvania serving table, a few paintings, and a Staffordshire lamp on a base.

The serious buying, however, took place on Saturday and Sunday when the absence of champagne cleared people's heads to make important decisions as to which antique would work best in the house. Art Ziello of Thomas Schwenke Inc., Woodbury, Connecticut, was heard to say that people take measurements on Saturday and buy on Sunday.

The theme of this year's antiques show was "Bedford Collects: <096>Elegant Pastimes'," a special exhibit on loan from residents of Bedford. The legendary photographer Slim Aarons, who lives in nearby Katonah, contributed a collection of black-and-white mounted photographs of famous personalities he has shot over the years. Also included was a photograph taken about 50 years ago that depicted a group of neighbors instructing their children on how to play croquet in the backyard of a white clapboard house. Parked among the automobiles in the driveway stood an old Chevrolet woody, a station wagon that was as much a symbol of a certain lifestyle in the 1950's as a Mercedes or BMW is today.

Dealers who exhibit at Bedford (and there are veterans who have brought their antique furniture and decorative arts almost as long as the show has been in existence) often comment on the rapport they have with the managers and committees who organize the show sponsored by St. Matthew's Church. Cochairmen Lisa Jeffrey and Phoebe Perry, show manager Janet Robinson, publicist Connie Hamilton, and fellow committee members who are responsible for the advertising, bartenders, dealer hospitality, decorations, invitations, program (100 pages), and raffle/silent auction are held in high esteem by these dealers. Anything and everything could go wrong, but the show and preview party always runs smoothly.

This year's show included 38 dealers in booths located on two floors of the school. They journeyed from as close as Katonah, New York, and from as far away as Sarasota, Florida, and offered American, Continental, English, and French furniture, garden furniture, 19th- and 20th-century fine art, estate jewelry, Oriental rugs, nautical antiques, Chinese Export porcelain, European decorative antiques, and items as unusual as a collection of glass eyes manufactured around the time of World War I.

Sandwiches, hot and cold drinks, muffins, brownies, and a rich New England clam chowder provided show attendees fortification and a pleasant few minutes of relaxation in the lunchroom on the lower level. The chowder alone helped to make trekking the aisles an enjoyable adventure.